


This Is A Family Saga

by melliyna



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 14:08:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melliyna/pseuds/melliyna





	This Is A Family Saga

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[fandom: west wing](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/tag/fandom:+west+wing), [fic](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/tag/fic), [fic: ensemble](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/tag/fic:+ensemble), [pairing: gen](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/tag/pairing:+gen)  
  
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_**Fic: West Wing: This Is A Family Saga**_  
**Title:** This Is A Family Saga  
**Author:** [](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/profile)[**melliyna**](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/)   
**Fandom:** West Wing  
**Pairing:** Gen  
**Rating:** PG   
**Word Count:** 1,000   
**Disclaimer:** Property and creation of Aaron Sorkin, not me   
**Warnings/Timeline/Spoilers:** Spoilers for all seven seasons here  
**A/N:** From a prompt given to me by [](http://raedbard.livejournal.com/profile)[**raedbard**](http://raedbard.livejournal.com/) 'this is a family saga, told in fits and starts' with thanks for the inspiration

It's a family that isn't a family. Because they don't fit exactly right, if you look at from a certain angle. But they've got the complications of family, without the easiness of friends. Begun as an alliance, crowded around a tiny office in New Hampshire awkward strangers, stretching to find a unifying theme, a candidate to believe in.

Somehow, they'd built something else. Political campaigns are always extraordinary things - in the rise, the fall. In amongst the polls, the endless endless travel, pressed in to the side of a bus that always smells slightly off, planes full of hungover or drunk or caffeine deprived journalists who you've got to keep interested. And donuts, the donuts become more precious than gold or a positive poll result. It is by the donuts that they become winners. Or at least so Josh says, as he reaches for another one.

You can see a false intimacy, in the cheap rooms and the late nights. But this isn't a normal campaign, in this way. Sam and Toby, way back then, shaping their world, Jed Bartlets' world over paper, laptops and sentence construction. CJ, who seems to fit between them, between them all, using words in the same way. And Josh, who bounces and clings to all of them. There's complications, of course there is - not least of which with Jed Bartlet, who doesn't seem to want to know any of them.

You can see something else grow, after the nomination is accepted. Suddenly, they learn what is is to know Jed Bartlet, to be loved and esteemed by him. Suddenly, this is a family with a father. And Leo, who holds all the threads in his hands, in more ways than one. It's dangerous, this intimacy and they all know it, but somehow it can't be let go off. For the Bartlets' and their staff, it's not just about politics, better policies or otherwise. This is personal, in fits and starts.

Josh, smiling through his tears. Josh, bleeding against a wall. Sam, who left to follow a dream he'd never been sure of. Jed Bartlet, smiling through his tears. Coffins and deaths. A betrayal, in black and white and heart break. Harsh words, to the favoured and not so favoured sons. Leo, who no longer holds the threads of all their lives, even as he will forever be present in all of them.

A little girl who is CJ and Danny's, hands curled around Jed Bartlet's. Huck and Molly, looking on. Later Molly twirls in ballet shoes, watched by her parents while Huck holds Toby's hand, watching his sister. A little boy, who is Sam Seaborn's, warm against his father who shapes the words of a story that is new to him, this little life.

It is a family saga, told in fits and starts, but also in love.


End file.
